Domain Registration – Make Sure You are the Registrant

Many clients have their design firm or agency purchase a domain on their behalf. “ Sometimes those agencies register the domain in their name. However, whoever is the registrant, is the owner of the domain.

Why this is important

You may run into the situation that the agency controls the domain name. If they are the registrant they have the right to make decisions for your domain transfer, renewal, and even the right for it to be sold. This means, if at any point you want to transfer hosting, redesign the site, or need to renew your URL, you would need to contact the agency to make that change.

We’ve seen several instances where clients leave their old design firm, and the company went out-of-business, out of the country, or just plain disappeared.” ” ”  Without the login information, you will have no access to the domain. Therefore you cannot transfer, update, or extend ownership of the domain.

Worst Case Scenarios

What does the worst case look like?” ”  The owner could let your domain lapse and your URL could be renewed by someone else.Since they are also the registrant, the owner actually has rights to sell the domain to someone else. Situations like that could take months to resolve legally, if possible at all.

Tips for your Domain Registration:

1. Make sure the Registrant is your name, or your firm name.You can do this yourself, or if you are working with a web design firm, you can ask them to register the site with your name, and email address. Once it is set up, be sure to get the user name and password for the URL.Keep this in your records for future use!
2. Register for as many years as possible, this helps with SEO and just keeping the domain active.
3. Make sure you use a legitimate registrar, sometimes registrars or resellers do go out of business and it complicates matters.
4. Make sure you keep your email address up to date, this way you can easily reset passwords in case you forget them.